Francesca Martinez

“I think humour is a fundamental human right. It’s a big part of the way I handle my difference. If the audience feels sorry for me when I walk out on stage because I’m wobbly, I use humour to question why. By the time I walk off, I want them to see the person beyond the wobbles.”

Adam Hill

“With comedy and disability people go, ‘Ooh, where’s the line?’ There is no line – if you’re celebrating, then you won’t say the wrong thing. As long as it comes from the place of going ‘This is great’. And it is, it’s an amazing sporting event. I think because everyone behind the show loves the Paralympics, we get it, we’ve seen a lot of Paralympic sports and we’ve all gone beyond that [he puts on an insipid voice], ‘Oh isn’t this inspiring’ and instead gone, ‘This guy’s awesome. It’s about the sport really.”

Lost Voice Guy

“I want to show that there’s a funny side to disability too and that people are allowed to have a sense of humour about it. I’d rather people talked about it than pretend it didn’t exist. It’s a big part of my routine but I wouldn’t want to focus on it forever, it’s just that I’ve got so many stories to tell about it.”

Liz Carr

“I think disability is the last bastion of political correctness, and people need to see that disabled people are funny, you know, our lives are quite fascinating and there’s a lot that people can learn from that.”

Steve Day

“Once any initial reluctance on the part of the audience to laugh at disability is overcome, it provides, I think, an interesting perspective. There still is that resistance though, sometimes, every now and again an audience simply won’t have it. Two things have happened though, I’ve got funnier, and attitudes have changed, albeit slowly, since the early days. The Paralympics have also been a big help in making disability seem less scary and taboo, there is less reluctance to laugh.”